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Obama countdown

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

iPhone? Did you mean Windows 95, Mr. President?

Is Obama making the wrong comparison? While he compares healthcare.gov to the iPhone and iPad, both sophisticated pieces of hardware with robust operating systems, a more apt comparison may be to Windows 95 and Microsoft never did get it right. I migrated to IBM's Warp and then to Linux before going back to Microsoft with the event of Windows NT 4. Reports that 5 million lines of code may have to be rewritten means that, if true, it would mean rewriting one third of Windows 95 which contained 15 million lines of code. One would think healthcare.gov could have at least offered a copy of Freecell to pass the time while the system is stalled out.
Considering the testiness which Jay Carney and others in the administration display when asked about their iteration of Windows 95 one senses that the trouble runs deep. I would make it about even money that the individual mandate will be postponed. One can almost hear mother Robinson intone, "I told Barack he should listen to that Cruz fella. He's smart. But no-o he wanted to shut down the government. Now he is doing exactly what Cruz wanted and he looks like a fool."
From Kaiser Health News;

Florida Blue, for example, is terminating about 300,000 policies, about 80 percent of its individual policies in the state. Kaiser Permanente in California has sent notices to 160,000 people – about half of its individual business in the state. Insurer Highmark in Pittsburgh is dropping about 20 percent of its individual market customers, while Independence Blue Cross, the major insurer in Philadelphia, is dropping about 45 percent.

The news from the White House yesterday was that 476,000 people had created accounts on healthcare.gov. They may or may not buy a policy but 460,000 people in Florida and California have lost their insurance and that is certain. Last month, United Parcel Service told workers it would no longer provide health care for 15,000 spouses who can get benefits through their own employer. IBM terminated coverage for 110,000 retirees. Caterpillar and DuPont also have moved Medicare-age retirees onto the Extend exchange. As did Delta Airlines and General Electric. "If you like your health insurance you can keep it"
Come March 31, with or without the individual mandate, there will be fewer people insured than before the rollout of Windows 95 redux.